education

February 12, 2018

What is truth?

The Christ story is true because the Bible tells me so.  Like Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator, we ask “what is truth?”  Is this scientific truth?  No.  A peak experience in our life, like falling in love is true, but not scientifically verifiable.  There are different contexts for truth.  There is a difference between truth in court and truth in a laboratory.  There are different kinds of truth.  We say, “So help me, God.”  Stories, like the parable of the Good Samaritan, are true stories, but do we have to say every part happened exactly the way that the gospel story says that it did.  We are influenced by our culture and education.  Thus, we share our culture.  Otherwise there is no trust, only disbelief.  Is truth always black and white?  There are degrees, levels, and kinds of truth.

December 23, 2016

The new covenant (Jer 31:33-31:34)

“‘But this is the covenant

That I will make

With the house of Israel,

After those days.’

Says Yahweh.

‘I will put my law

Within them.

I will write it

On their hearts.

I will be their God.

They shall be my people.

No longer shall they teach

One another.

‘Know Yahweh!’

They shall all know me,

From the least of them

To the greatest.’

Says Yahweh.

‘I will forgive

Their iniquity.

I will remember their sin

No more.’”

Yahweh says that the new covenant will be written in the hearts of the people of Israel. It will be within them, so that they will not have to teach each other to know Yahweh. Yahweh was going to be their God. They were to be his people, plain and simple. There was no great need for any kind of education. From the least to the greatest, they would all know Yahweh, since he was going to forget their iniquity. He was not going to remember their sins anymore. There would be a clean slate with this new covenant of interior knowledge and love. God, Yahweh, has taken the imitative to create this new spiritual personal covenant of the heart. He was going to take away retribution for past sins but wanted personal responsibility for here on out. The law was no longer imposed from outside but came from within.